


Six Week Interlude

by Eirwyn



Category: End Times (Web Series)
Genre: Multi, all of the characters get a mention, i just focus on my faves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-11 14:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3330011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eirwyn/pseuds/Eirwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of little interconnected one-shots set in between Season 1 and Season 2.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Week Interlude

**Author's Note:**

> So Trace loses the camera for six weeks? What a perfect opportunity for fanfiction! Contains some of my own headcanons, so if you spot something that doesn't fit, that's why. With massive thanks to the End Times cast and crew, who are literally the friendliest bunch of people ever. I hope I didn't butcher the thing you've all worked so hard on!

The trip from Fort Maria wasn’t exactly a comfortable one, but as again with all things post-Virus, it was more than they could have hoped for. The trade caravan was a flotilla of cars, four in total, with one driver per car and the rest of the space absolutely rammed full of all kinds of things. Dane, as Maddi Valon’s brother, managed to score an actual seat, but the rest of them had to make do. Adrian, as the smallest, ended up perched on top of a couple of boxes, the top of his head brushing the car roof. Kimber sat on the floor, squashed between the front seat and the back seat, but able to rest her head on some blankets.

Trace and Charlie had been similarly squashed into another car, but when Dane offered to make space in the same car as him for Harry, Trace had cheerily informed him that it wasn’t necessary; Harry could easily fit into their car with some rearrangement, and dragged Harry away. Interfering woman. Harry was pretty sure he’d have killed her by now if he wasn’t as fond of her as he was. So that was how he found himself squashed on the floor with Charlie, legs all tangled together, with Trace beaming down at him from where she had managed to wedge herself in the trunk of the car.

Harry sighed and said. “Y’know, I don’t think you’ve stopped grinning yet. Please stop, it’s creepy.”

If anything, Trace’s grin got wider as she replied. “I had to suffer through years of emotional stupidity on both of your behalves, I think I should be allowed to be a little happy at my best friend gaining some emotional intelligence. I haven’t said ‘I told you so’ yet. Which, by the way….”

“You told me so?”

“I told you so. Repeatedly. At length.”

“It was one kiss, Trace. It doesn’t mean anything. Dane hasn’t said….”

Trace interrupted him firmly. “Please let’s not go back to emotional stupidity. Harry Fremont. When has Dane had the chance to say anything? I don’t know if you noticed, but we just survived a suicide mission!”

“Yeah.” Harry allowed, but couldn’t stop the squirming in his guts. With his apparently newly found ‘emotional intelligence’, Harry knew it was apprehension, and not just about his relationship – or lack thereof – with Dane. They were heading to another new place, run by another member of Greenden, and from what he’d seen so far, Harry did not have high hopes. Seeing the way the Oligarchy cowered in front of Maddi, even the older Dr Lacy, made him worry that Fort Hadley was going to be no better than Fort Maria. Commander Albright was an unknown, and there was no way of assessing him before they actually came face to face. Harry wasn’t good with unknowns, and for months, all he’d had were unknowns basically chucked at his head.

“Hey.” Harry felt a finger flicked against his temple, and looked back over at Trace, who was still smiling, but more gently, more genuinely. “C’mon, Worf. It’ll be fine. Anyway. Denmark.”

“Kazakhstan.”

“Norway.”

“Ugh. Yemen.”

“That’s not a country!”

“Is so!” Harry retorted, and let himself be distracted be the subsequent playful argument Trace dragged him into. She was good at that, saving him from himself.

The drive to Fort Hadley was about four hours, with one break for everyone to stretch their legs. Dane had come straight back over to Harry during that break, and had just leant against Harry’s shoulder, listening with a small smile as Harry and Trace argued about The Avengers. As with all their arguments, it was a well-rehearsed conversation, and both of them knew how it was going to end.

That ten minute break was the most content Harry could remember feeling for a long time, standing under the sun surrounded by his friends, with his… well, with Dane leaning against him, warm and solid by his side. It was lovely, for all the short time it lasted. The others seemed to enjoy it as well, more than once, Harry caught Trace with her face tipped up towards the sun, and Kimber and Adrian were sitting on the bonnet of one of the cars, equally blissful expressions on both of their faces. Whilst they weren’t drastically different looking normally, the similarities in the way they were enjoying the sun made them look uncannily alike. Harry thought of his brother, the ever-present grief suddenly rushing to the forefront of his mind, but these days, Harry was finding it easier to close his eyes and breathe through it, accepting the emotion but not letting become overwhelmed by it.

He felt a hand on his arm, and opened his eyes to see Dane looking at him with those pretty blue eyes of his. Harry smiled at him and leaned forward to rest their foreheads together. Harry could blurrily see Dane smile back before he closed his eyes. The peace lasted all of a few seconds before a piercing wolf-whistle broke it. Harry sighed and opened his eyes, looking over to where Charlie and Trace were sniggering to themselves whilst attempting to keep straight faces.

When they saw Harry looking over at them, both of them simultaneously pointed to the other and exclaimed. “It wasn’t me!”

Harry felt Dane huff with laughter beside him as he pointed at Charlie. “Not funny, Charlie, not even a little.” He then pointed at Trace. “Stop encouraging him, Trace.”

Trace smirked at him, but before she could throw a retort his way, they were told to get back into the cars. Crammed back into a car with a furiously debating Trace and Charlie (they’d moved on from The Avengers and had expanded to the Marvel Universe in general), Harry leant his head against his arm and thought of Dane.

Fort Hadley was a series of abandoned ski lodges, all of them looking solid and equally well used. Standing in front of the sign that used to say ‘ _Welcome to Kender Mount Ski Resort_ ’ and now had ‘FORT HADLEY’ spray painted across it in rough red capital letters stood two people, a little dark-haired girl, hair in a pixie cut and arms crossed over a green polo shirt and at her right shoulder was a lanky blond boy, the apparently ubiquitous leather jacket only emphasising how skinny he was. As Harry climbed out of the car after Charlie and began to make his way over to the boy and girl clearly waiting, he’d already assumed that it was the blond boy who was the famous Commander Albright, so he probably wasn’t very good at hiding his surprise when the girl stepped forward and held her hand out, saying. “Welcome to Fort Hadley, guys. I’m Commander Callie Albright.”

Harry shook her hand and stepped out of the way so that Kimber could meet her, followed by Adrian. Trace had her camera out and was filming quietly in the background. Albright noticed this and nodded. “That’s reminded me. Trace, I presume Maddi told you we’re going to have to seize your camera?”

“No!” Trace exclaimed, pulling the camera back towards her body protectively. “Why do you have to do that?”

Albright shrugged and smiled as she indicated to the boy next to her to go and take the camera. “Maddi sent orders on ahead of you. We just have to review what footage you’ve got, and then you can have it back. We’ll take good care of it, Trace. I promise.”

Trace squinted suspiciously at the boy, but in the end, slowly handed the camera over. As the boy walked back to Albright’s side, she added. “This is Hobbes, by the way. My second-in-command. Between the two of us, we command about fifteen Greenden soldiers, who you’ll see around. There are also about twenty refugees here, like yourselves.”  
Albright smiled again and gestured to the lodge behind her. “Well, come on in. You can’t stand there all day. We’ll get you assigned a bed and work rota. Harry, I know you’ve been assigned to Dr Ramirez’s lab along with Dane, so I’ll put you on a similar rotation, don’t worry.”

As the five of them began to follow Hobbes into the building, Dane darted over to Albright and asked. “Is it okay if I go and check on the lab? I need to see that it’s all in proper order.”

“Sure, Dane, off you go.”

Dane moved away, but instead of immediately dashing off to wherever the lab was, he came back over to Harry and said quietly. “I’ll come back and get you in about half a hour so I can take you around the lab. Is that acceptable?”

Harry nodded, bemused, and then slightly embarrassed when Dane kissed his cheek before walking swiftly off. Suddenly the centre of attention, Harry shrugged bashfully and moved forward, hoping that six pairs of eyes would stop staring at him soon. A girl’s laughter broke the silence and Callie came to walk next to him as she cheerily said. “So you’re that Harry? Dane has hardly been able to shut up about you, even with you being presumed dead for the last three months.”

Harry closed his eyes briefly. Seems like he and Dane had been as obvious as everyone kept telling him he was. He really didn’t want to be the Fort’s new centre of gossip. He just hoped that they had more important things to worry about than who was kissing who. Although, ninety percent of the Fort’s inhabitants were teenagers and people in their early twenties, so gossip was likely to be quite a popular pastime.

After everything had been sorted, and Harry was clutching a sheet of paper with his new rota on it, he was walking around outside, trying to take in his new surroundings. He’d never been so close to the mountains before. The air outside was cold and thin, and Harry could see the ski lifts dangling uselessly from their starting positions. He stood and stretched, lifting his arms above his head and breathing deeply. It was a nice out here. You could almost forget that the world had basically gone to hell. There were just flowers and grass and clear blue skies.

“Harry!”

Harry turned, and couldn’t stop the grin spreading over his face as he saw Dane hurrying towards him. He had changed out of his leather jacket and dark blue v-neck (Harry had a soft spot for that shirt, it made Dane’s eyes look very blue) and into a red one. Harry walked to meet him and as soon as Harry was in arms reach, Dane reached out to take a hand as he asked. “Ready to see the lab?”

Harry nodded. “Sure, but you know I’m not going to be much use on a generator, right? I mean, you’re the engineer.”

As they moved off at a leisurely pace, Dane nodded agreeably. “I know you’re a filthy biochemist, but I still think you’ll be able to help. Anyway, I’m sure Dr. Ramirez will find other things for you to do. There’s tons of stuff we’ll have to work on. Dr. Ramirez is the best person to be working with. All the other people leading labs are Greenden students and they can be so arrogant.”

“Well thank God you’re above all that.”

Dane shot Harry a look and Harry grinned at him winningly. The lab, when they got there, was in an outbuilding which was clearly normally used as some kind of meeting/conference room, and had been converted into a makeshift lab. There was no fume cupboard, and Harry couldn’t see any dedicated aseptic area, but if this lab had only been used by engineers, that would be why. He could set that up easily enough. There were microscopes, plenty of them, as well as test tubes and test tube racks. Letting go of Dane’s hand, Harry stepped into the lab properly and began to go through the cupboards, trying to establish exactly how much equipment they had.

He was halfway through making a mental list of things that he desperately needed to sort out before he did any work in this lab, whilst fiddling with some hazard tape he’d found so he could make the aseptic area (how were they for gas? It would be a nightmare to have to reconfigure Bunsen burners…) when he heard an amused cough come from behind him and turned around to see Dane sitting on a bench, kicking his legs back and forth and grinning.

“Not up to your exacting standards?”

Harry rolled his eyes at Dane. “How have you managed to not contaminate your entire lab? You have opened and unopened chemicals _right next to each other!_ ”

Dane sighed, and came over, kneeling on the floor next to Harry to help as he replied. “Normally I’d tease you for that, but any high school freshman knows that’s not acceptable. I’ll help.”

They didn’t get more than an hour in there alone before some Greenden student (Harry heard Dane call him Simon in a tone that anybody else would call respectful, but Harry could hear the distaste on his tongue) kicked them out. Dane had sat down on the wooden steps with a stubborn expression on his face, but had pointed Harry in the direction of the kitchens when he mentioned that he was hungry, saying that the people on kitchen rotation would be more than happy to feed him.

So Harry went, and ate, and met some more of the refugees, mostly boys and girls his own age or a little younger, the ones who could have got as far as Kenville under their own steam. There were a few younger ones, kids who were Adrian’s age, Harry knew that because Albright had mentioned it on seeing Adrian, but there were none in the kitchens that afternoon.

The first time Harry saw Trace again was the evening, when he’d retreated to their shared room to take five minutes, and found Trace already there, sitting on her bed with her head against the ceiling as if the cracks in its dirty white paint held the secrets to the universe. She looked lost, so Harry climbed onto the bed next to her and just sat there in silence for a while. 

After around five minutes of just listening to them breathe, Trace sighed and leaned her head on his shoulder, saying. “Hey.”

“Hey. Hard day?”

“Just long, y’know? Different. This is so not what I’d thought I’d be doing this summer.”

Harry huffed quietly beside her. “You’re not wrong, but I don’t think anybody _expected_ this to happen. We’re just the lucky people who get to deal with it.”

“How were the labs?”

“Not bad for being makeshift. How was… everything else?”

“Okay. Hard work. Getting food and shelter. They’re trying to extend some of the ski lodges. The work was started pre-Vi, but Albright’s trying to finish it.”

“So you’re building?”

Trace nodded. “And cooking, and gathering food, and some people are on First Aid or administrative work. They’ve got Kimber doing that.”

“She must be delighted.”

“I think she kinda was. You know how she was about being organised when we were home.”

Harry sighed. “Home.”

“We’re never gonna see it again, are we?”

Harry shrugged. “Guess this will have to be home now.”

“Military dictatorship. Sure says ‘home’ to me.”


End file.
